The cacos call or send SMS by passing through public institutions or companies and banks to achieve personal and banking data or subscribe fraudulently to an unre requested service. The Government wants to combat that nightmare for consumers and has approved a standard that will force telephone companies to source calls and text messages suspected of covering up one of these scams that use identity impersonation.
The regulations impose a series of obligations on telephone companies (Movistar, Masorange, Vodafone, Digi, etc.) to implement technical and computer systems that detect and block that types of calls and prevent their realization. In case of breach of these measures, the operators will have to face fines of up to two million euros that will pay the Administration, although they will not be responsible for compensating the scammed customer, according to the Secretary General of Telecommunications, Matías González.
“Companies will be responsible to the administration, but the scams must file a complaint with the police. However, we aspire with this regulation to end most of these scams that have grown exponentially in recent years. The measures are in line with those implanted in other countries such as Finland, France, Germany and Belgium, in some of which have been reduced almost 90% of this type of scams, ”said González.
The order of the Ministry of Digital Transformation only affects calls and SMS, but leaves out the WhatsApp and the emails, another great focus of scams. Generally
So far the only way to avoid this type of fraudulent practices are the programs antispam enabled by the operating systems of the mobiles (Android of Google or iOS of Apple) or by the telephone brands themselves. Through a database, these programs detect and warn the user if they believe that the calling is suspicious. From now on that responsibility will fall to the telephone company to which the client is paid.
Doubtive numbers block
The ministerial order includes several technical and regulatory instruments. The first and most relevant is the obligation of the operators to block calls and SMS with numbering that has not been attributed, assigned or awarded to a holder, including empty numbering. For example, numbers that begin by 3 or 4, not currently attributed to any service in Spain, or numbers not assigned to any operator, and that, therefore, cannot correspond to real clients. This measure will enter into force at 20 days of its publication in the BOE.
Very related to this point, there will be the obligation for the operators of the blocking of calls and SMS of international origin that simulate having been originated in a Spanish number, except those clients who are in roaming (Travelers calls from abroad). The measure is aimed at the so -called fraudulent ones that come from abroad as Netherlands or the United Kingdom, but simulate calls with Spanish numbering to deceive the citizen.
Operators maintain specific traffic routes for traffic originating in other countries, routes through which calls with numbering of those countries should come before the corresponding number that originates the call, and whose length and structure varies according to the country. What cannot come by these routes is national traffic +34 or 0034 followed by a geographical or a mobile, and when it comes it will be synonymous that the number is manipulated with the intention of creating familiarity and reliability in the citizen, and will have to be blocked for the operator that receives that call by an international traffic route. This measure will be required at most three months after the entry into force of the ministerial order.
SAFS REGISTRATION FOR SMS
The third measure will not be the responsibility of the companies but of the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC). The sector regulator must create within 15 months a database with verified names or codes, so that the scammers do not pass through a bank, company or administration in the SMS.
In SMS sending sometimes an alphanumeric label is used as an identification instead of a mobile number. This is a very widespread practice in communications of both companies and public administrations. These alphanumeric codes will be, from the entry into force of the measure, registered and verified by the CNMC, as a measure to protect the name of the companies or entities, and more quickly and efficiently locate any attempt to supplant.
Finally, and as announced, the last provisions refer to commercial calls. On the one hand, the use of mobile numbering is prohibited, conceived to identify end users and not companies, for this type of calls. It is about avoiding an important part of the scams that occurs when the citizen receives calls from national mobiles that has no stored on his agenda, so he cannot identify the calling, and take the mobile. This measure will be applicable to three months of the entry into force of the Ministerial Order.
Along the same lines, 800 and 900 numbers are enabled to make commercial calls. So far these numbers could only receive calls, but not broadcast them. In this way, commercial calls can be made from numbers specially attributed to it (for example, short numbers such as 1004 Telefónica); From geographical numbering (with provincial prefix) from numbering 900/800. The measure will be enabled within 20 days.
